Live-Action ‘Detective Pikachu’ Movie Casts Its Female Lead

Back when Pokemon Go still felt like something new and innovative, Pokemon seemed to be having a kind of resurgence. Which is why it was no surprise when a live-action Pokemon movie was announced — the first live-action Pokemon movie ever — though it won’t be the kind of Pokemon movie a lot of us were expecting. Legendary is adapting the hugely popular Great Detective Pikachu game, which stars the iconic electric mouse as a mystery-solving monster that can sort of speak instead of saying its own name over and over. Pikachu himself will be CGI, and the film is working on finding its real human leads.

We heard a few months back that The Get Down’s Justice Smith was cast as the male lead, likely as the boy Tim Goodman who can understand what Pikachu says when he talks. Variety reports Kathryn Newton, who played Reese Witherspoon’s precocious daughter in Big Little Lies, was added to the cast as the young female lead.

The movie will be directed by Gooseumps’ Rob Letterman, with a script from Nicole Perlman (Guardians of the Galaxy) and Alex Hirsch (Gravity Falls). Universal will handle all distribution worldwide outside Japan, which will be done by frequent Universal collaborator Toho. There was some talk that Dwayne Johnson could play the voice of Pikachu, which would be funny for a good 20 seconds and then would probably just become weird.